Light bends due to forces like Gravitational and Nuclear
1. Gravity's Cosmic Lens: Warping Spacetime The most dramatic and well-understood bending of light occurs due to gravity . But it's not simply a "force" pulling on photons. According to Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, gravity isn't a force at all—it's the curvature of spacetime caused by the presence of mass and energy. How it Works: Light always takes the shortest path through spacetime (these paths are called geodesics). When light passes near a massive object, it's not being pulled by gravity; it's simply following the contours of the warped spacetime. The light's path appears bent to an observer in a flatter region of spacetime. Our diagram illustrates this with light curving around a massive object. Proof: The Eclipse of 1919 and Gravitational Lensing The bending of starlight by the Sun was famously predicted by Einstein and dramatically confirmed by Sir Arthur Eddington during a solar eclipse in 1919. Stars whose ligh...